Seems like a season for Aliens. I went throug hsome of this with my Tonk. I
think one problem with tryign to figure out alien psychology is it is still
framed within the understanding of terrestrial beasts. I think you
covered them ajors - great note with the Kafer there. I like that.
One option is to also mandate tactics with rules which overlap into
psychology. I was thinking of a particularly guilful species which responds to
threats by baiting it. Much like a mother bird defending her young. Not sure
how you'd model this but you basicly end up with a race that never fights head
on
Eli
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I've been thinking about aliens today. And why not? Beats thinking about
reality, after all....
Specifically, I've been thinking about alien psychology, at least to the
degree that it relates to game play.
To simplify matters to an appalling (but gameable) degree, there are three
basic responses when a human being feels threatened:
Flight -- running away from the threat,
Fight -- attacking the threat,
or Freeze -- holding still and hoping that the threat won't notice
you.
The rules assume Freeze as the default human response (which seems reasonable
enough), and the Suppression system models that quite well. What's more, it's
quite easy to "tweak" the system a little
to allow for a greater range of response, such as:
Timidity -- Units recieve *two* Suppression markers when they
come under fire, rather than one.
Boldness -- Units may automatically remove one Suppression
marker when they are activated.
Caution -- Units automatically go "In Position" when they recieve a
Supression marker, and must come out of position (as per the rules) before
they can move.
I've been thinking about the other two responses, though, and how best to
model them without mutilating the system too badly. I've got some preliminary
ideas, so I thought that I'd throw them out there and let the list at large
tear them to bits.
For Flight, which appears to be the default Herbivore response, you could do
the following: When a unit is activated, it must immediately make one
confidence check for every Suppression marker that it has. For each failed
test, the unit must spend an action to make a Combat Move away from any and
all visible attackers. If the tests are passed, the unit may act normally. (I
have this particular system in mind for my Grey aliens, who would be making
that confidence test at a considerable penalty.)
For Fight, on the other hand.... The problem here is that, when facing modern
(or future!) firearms, the Fight response is likely to get you killed.
Nevertheless, it's still appropriate, and can be a nasty thing to face under
the right circumstances (The
Niven/Barnes/Pournelle "Grendels" are a fine example.) Here's one
way to play it, assuming an intelligent foe: A unit with two or more
Suppression markers must immediately make a confidence check when it is
activated. If this check is passed, the unit may attempt to remove the markers
as normal (probably at a bonus, since we're assuming an aagressive species).
If the check is *failed*, however, the unit must immediately charge the
nearest
enemy unit, with a movement bounus of +d8" for this movement
only. (With sufficiently nasty aliens, give this charge a "Terror" effect and
you'll give them a slightly better chance of surviving.)
And of course, on top of all that, there are some completely alien responses
to consider.
You've got the Remorseless Killing Machine option, which ignores Suppression
entirely, and has plenty of fictional precedents. More interestingly, you've
got GDW's "Kafers", who react to stress by boosting their intelligence.
(Easy enough to do with SGII: Kafer units start as Greens, but for every
Suppression marker they receive their quality level improves by a step.)
Are there any other obvious options that I'm missing here?
G'day,
> For Flight, which appears to be the default Herbivore response, you
There are quite a few herbivores that don't do that and a fair few carnivores
that do. Its a size not diet based response for Terran animals at least;)
> When a unit is activated, it must immediately make one
You'll find that leads to a LOT of rolls which terribly slows things down.
Instead trying adding a few confidence test triggers, or applying the Panic
mechanisms a bit more liberally. There is an increase in rolls, but not by the
same degree. If you find that is still too much try giving them a die roll
modifier to their confidence checks to make them more likely to run in the
first place but also slightly more likely to come back (so your force doesn't
just dissolve on you permanently). After much playing with my Greys that's
what I've settled on as a good compromise position.
> Are there any other obvious options that I'm missing here?
Off the top of my head...
- the "play dead" option. If you think of Motie warriors wounded get
one final activation before dropping out of the game (particularly in melee).
If you think opossum then when they fall to some confidence level they
literally play dead until threat moves x " away and then they magically
revive.
- less quality units could sacrifice themselves to take the bullet for
higher quality units (or within a squad a trooper takes it instead of the
CO).
- replacement of leaders who aren't good
- single motivation chit for all units
- motivation/quality changes based on distance to other units. For
colonial units you could have the further the way from friendlies the worse it
is. For territorial units it could be that the closer other units get the more
likely they are to do some pre-programmed response (like attack)
- there's single minded objective taking with all confidence based on
whether you're there or not regardless of losses and the status of other units
friend or foe
You can also represent different social systems/psychologies by squad
chit differences
- so if they get to be leaders because they're the best then leaders are
always one better than marked
- could be as you age you get better (bit like some of the KV warrior
type ideas
- concentrating on green-3 or vet-1 depending on prevalence of bribery,
military training etc etc etc
I've probably missed something glaringly obvious, but hopefully these should
help you a bit.
Cheers
Yeah, I went through this a bit awhile back and decided it simply was not
worth it on the scale of of SGII. Perhaps with a game system that detailed
INDIVIDUAL creature reactions a bit more instead of the squad's reactions
(and of course it will slow down game-play).
Instead I just came up with differing charts (confidence, leader replacement,
etc) for each of the races I am using. So far, it seems to
work fairly well.
My self-serving link again <g>:
http://home.swbell.net/grog1/sg2/sg_mod.htm
Scott The Grumbling Grognard
P.S. Put me down as another vote for no-off-topic stuff (please).
> Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2003 16:54:52 -0500 (EST)
> Fight/Flight/Freeze & Psychological
Thanks, and Have Fun
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